


Poison

by mohrsecode



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Asgardian Liquor, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Inktober, Just let my boys be happy, M/M, No Sex, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 11:37:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16158215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mohrsecode/pseuds/mohrsecode
Summary: Inktober Challenge Day One: PoisonAfter a night featuring Asgardian Mead, Bucky Barnes finds himself waking up in Steve Rogers bed.Memories are reflected on, Feelings are revealed.





	Poison

**Author's Note:**

> In this world Civil War never happens because it was dumb and in my world, my boys know how to play nicely with each other.  
> Also, not beta read, so please let me know if you find errors!

**Inktober**

_Poison_

Bucky Barnes struggled to stay asleep even as the warm glow of sunshine streamed directly across his face. He vaguely registered that his head felt like the entirety of Riverdance had taken up residence there, and that his mouth felt as fluffy and dry as cotton. Against his best efforts to stay asleep, his brain gradually came on line, slowly realizing that this was not his bedroom.

The first clue was the sun that had so rudely woken him. Bucky always drew his blackout curtains closed before going to bed each night. He had always been a night owl, and 70 years of brainwashing and torture couldn’t seem to cure him of that. The second clue was the bed. It was much softer than Bucky’s, who usually had trouble sleeping on mattresses that felt like cotton candy. Peeking open an eye, Bucky realized that the bed sheet was grey, whereas he had just changed his sheets out for a blue set a few days prior. The biggest clue that Bucky was not in his own room was the strong arm draped across his stomach, and the furnace like body heat he felt at his side.

His eyes flew open and he quickly recognized both the room and the body next to him. A shirtless Steve Rogers was sleeping on his stomach, face turned toward him, covered in lines from the pillow, mouth slightly open with soft snores. The room in question was Steve’s. Bucky could see his shield leaning against the wall from his place in bed. His place in _Steve’s_ bed. His place in Steve’s bed with a _Shirtless_ Steve. Relief briefly flooded him as he realized where he was. This was far from the first time he had seen Steve shirtless or that they had shared a bed. It had been commonplace in their drafty little apartment back in the 30s. Since entering the 21 st century and regaining his memories, they had yet to get this comfortable with each other. Their friendship was just as strong as ever, now that Bucky had stopped running and come in from the cold, but their relationship had lost some of the physicality they had been so comfortable with in their youth. On Bucky’s side, the reason was as simple as it was complicated. Bucky Barnes was in love with Steve Rogers.

\----

Bucky had known from a very young age that there was something special about Steve Rogers, even if it took a lot to convince Steve of the same. Steve had been prickly toward Bucky after he stepped in to save him during a playground fight, convinced that Bucky was only trying to hang around to make fun of him or out of pity. Truth was, Bucky really didn’t connect with any of the other kids, not until Steve Rogers. After that, the two of them were inseparable.

Bucky had also known from a young age that he loved Steve Rogers. Just a few months into their blossoming friendship, Steve caught a bad case of pneumonia that laid him up in bed for weeks. Bucky had tried going in to see him but both his mother and Steve’s refused to let him step foot in their apartment, not wanting him to get sick too. Instead, Bucky had forlornly set up camp on the fire escape outside Steve’s window, wrapped up in a thick winter coast and talking to him through the thin sheet of glass. During that time Steve got so bad Sarah Rogers called in Father Edwards over to read Last Rites. Bucky had been beside himself for days, wishing that he would die, rather than watch Steve die. That was when he knew he loved Steve as much as any member of his family.

It wasn’t until nearly ten years later that Bucky realized he was _in love_ with Steve Rogers. It was while he had a hand up Betty Miller’s skirt in the alley behind the dance hall, his first time a girl let him get that fresh, that he realized he would rather be with Steve. He liked girls well enough, had a good time with them, but he always liked Steve _more._ As much fun as Bucky had necking with a girl at the movies, or swirling her around the dance floor, Bucky found himself wishing he could do those things with Steve instead.

After that realization, it seemed like everything Steve did made Bucky fall more in love with him. Bucky loved the way his brows furrowed when Steve was confused or concerned. He loved the way his lounge would stick out just a bit as he worked on a sketch or school work. He loved that little chest the worked so hard to keep Steve alive through every fight, asthma attack, and illness. He loved those skinny arms and steady fists that always rose up for fights he knew he couldn’t win. He loved his heart, as much as it seemed set to kill Steve, for its endless compassion. Most of all, Bucky loved his smile, the way it crinkled his blue eyes at the corners and the way it spread warmth through Bucky every time it was directed at him. He wanted nothing more than to hold Steve close and love and protect him from the world.

Their lives weren’t that easy. Steve was almost always sick with something, and when he wasn’t Bucky could always find him getting into some fight as he tried to defend some dame, kid, or alley dog. Things got worse as Sarah Rogers got sick. Steve wasn’t allowed to go see her. They were concerned that his weak constitution couldn’t handle it. Bucky was allowed to see her a few times, acting as messenger between mother and son. As it got worse, Sarah made him promise to take care of her boy. Something in her eyes that day made Bucky feel like she knew just how deep his love for her son went. But then Sarah died, and it was all Bucky could do the hold Steve together as he tried to fall apart.

Bucky watched as Steve tried to distance himself. He watched as his spirit dwindled and his smiles became forced and rare. Bucky tried to give him his space, but he also refused to leave Steve _alone_. Eventually, as Steve struggled to maintain rent, Bucky just moved in. He showed up one day with a suitcase and a few boxes, and that was it. It wasn’t an instant fix for all of their problems, but Bucky felt like as long as they had each other, they would be alright. Steve grieved his mother, but eventually life moved on, and Steve began to smile Bucky’s favorite smile again.

Living together was a test to self-control. Bucky continued to go out with girls, mostly to get him out of the apartment. He’d sometimes convince a girl to bring along a friend for Steve and then he would drag Steve out with them on a double, the whole time wishing that it was just him and Steve. There were days when Bucky thought and dreamed about saying something, about confessing his feelings. Even if Steve didn’t feel the same way, Bucky knew Steve wouldn’t think him evil or wicked like they had been taught as children. But then he would hear the things people said about Steve, or have to pull him out of a beating because a bunch of guys thought he “looked like a fairy,” and Bucky knew that even if by some miracle, Steve returned his feelings, Bucky could never put his life at risk like that.

So Buck stayed quiet. Quiet as Pearl Harbor was attacked and their lives flipped upside down. Silent as he was drafted and shipped out to boot camp. His feelings remained unspoken ad he was made a sergeant and sent overseas to fight a war he didn’t want to fight. He didn’t sign his letters with _love,_ as he wrote from a foxhole in Europe. He even managed to bite his tongue as a new Steve emerged in Azzano to pull him from hell like an avenging angel.

Steve’s post-rebirth body gave Bucky emotional whiplash with how many feelings he went through. Relief was the first and the strongest. He no longer had to worry about Steve getting sick, or having an asthma attack, or his heart giving out, any of the long list of ailments that seemed dead set on killing his best friend. After that, sadness prevailed. Sadness that Steve thought he needed this new body to be worth something, sadness that no one could see how special he was without all the height and muscle. Past the sadness was longing. Not in a lustful way, though that was there too. No, this longing was for the old Steve, for little Steve, for the Steve that Bucky had fallen in love with. Longing for the small shoulders he had flung his arms over, the skinny arms that clung to him like on octopus on cold winter nights when they shared a bed for warmth. And beneath all of that was anger. Anger at Steve. Anger that Steve took such a risk with his own life, that he had willingly let a German scientist inject him with a mystery serum before climbing into Howard Stark’s metal coffin.

It wasn’t until after Bucky had worked through all of those emotions that one last emotion, the strongest and most prevailing, managed to burrow itself into Bucky’s heart like a thorn in his side. Jealousy. Now, the girls who drooled after Steve everywhere they went, Bucky could deal with. Steve never gave them a second glance. No, it was Peggy Carter that elicited the green eyed monster in Bucky’s chest. Peggy Carter wasn’t some town girl of Nurse hoping to tie down an American soldier. Peggy Carter looked at Steve with eyes full of understanding, devotion, and love. Bucky couldn’t blame her, not really. Not when he struggled every day to not look at him in the same way. What hurt him the most, was that Steve looked right back at her with adoration all over his stupid, beautiful face.

Steve Rogers finally had everything he ever wanted, and Bucky Barnes had never felt more lost. So, he kept quiet still. He watched as Steve finally got the respect and recognition he had always deserved. He watched as Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers fell in love. He watched as Steve stepped into the leadership role he was born to fulfill. He watched Steve’s back as he ran into every mission as careless and headstrong as he was for any brawl in a Brooklyn street. He watched as Steve tried to reach him as the metal broke and watched as he fell. And then, he forgot.

\---

After, Bucky remembered. After the bridge and the helicarrier, after a year on the run, after removing triggers and breaking brainwashing, after more than 70 years, Bucky remembered what Steve Rogers meant to him, and still he stayed quiet.

Steve had already established a life for himself in this new century. He had a new team, a new family of friends, and Bucky wasn’t sure where he fit anymore. Bucky tried his best to fit in, to still be the best friend that he could be, but he worried that he would never be Steve’s Bucky again. He worried that keeping this secret to himself might one day eat him up alive. He worried that the little slice of normality that he had carved for himself would be ripped from him again, and Steve with it. He worried that Steve no longer needed Bucky in his life to be happy. So Bucky bottled it up and dealt with it in private. He spoke of it some to his therapist, who encouraged him to speak to Steve and tell him how he felt, but Bucky could never work up the courage to say something.

\---

Bucky was at war with himself as he watched Steve sleep and struggled to remember what happened the night before. He remembers Stark deciding to throw a party for some reason, and Thor bringing out the Asgardian mead, promising that it was strong enough for the super soldiers. Bucky remembers felling the warmth of liquor down his throat the way he hasn’t felt it since before Azzano. After that, his memories go from blurred around the edges to just plan blurred.

Bucky finally makes the decision to remove himself from bed and try to sneak out of the room to save some of his dignity, but the slightest dip of the bed as he shifted away was enough to wake Steve. He blinked owlishly at the sun before groaning and burying his face into the pillow.

“Next time Thor brings his mead to a party, please slap it out of my hand.” His voice was muffled against the pillow, but Bucky had enough experience with Steve to understand.

“Gah! That stuff is poisonous, I swear! Dumb, blue, alien posion.” He lamented as he turned back to grin ruefully at Bucky.

“I haven’t felt this hungover since you brought home that bottle of homebrew Old Mr. Martin gave you for fixing his crooked door.” As he spoke, Steve shifted to his side to rest his head on Bucky’s shoulder and burry his face into his neck, where he left a soft kiss. Bucky stiffened at the gesture and could feel Steve tense too.

Steve quickly began to roll away and sat, making to get up from the bed.

“Sorry. Sorry. Just forget that happened. I didn’t mean to…” Bucky sat a grabbed his arm before Steve could get off of the bed. Steve kept his back to him, refusing to look at him.

“Buck, please don’t make this a thing. Let’s just forget it happened and let life continue as it was, I can just go on pretending and you won’t have to worry ‘bout it. We can just blame it on that evil Asgardian poison and move on.” As Steve continued to ramble on, Bucky shifted to he could see Steve’s face again, red in embarrassment and eyes rimmed with tears. His eyes briefly met Bucky’s before flickering back down to his lap. Bucky let go of his arm, just to take his hand in his, interlocking their fingers.

“What are you just gonna go on pretending?” Bucky questions softly, scared to break the moment and terrified to spook Steve. His heart raced as he waited for an answer.

“Don’t worry about it, Buck. It’s not important.”

“Everything with you is important, punk.” At the old nickname, Steve huffed out a brief laugh. “Please Stevie, I _need_ to know.”

Steve finally turned to look at him, his face searching for something. Bucky wasn’t sure what, but he seemed to find it.

“I can just go on pretending that I’m not in love with you.” He spoke, barely above a whisper, turning away from him again. Bucky felt like his heart was about to beat straight out of his chest like in that space movie Wilson made him watch.

“Well, that’s a shame.” Bucky started, finally, after all these years deciding he can no longer be quiet. “Because I don’t think _I_ can’t keep pretending that _I’m_ not in love with _you_.”

Steve’s head whipped around so fast a normal man would have gotten whip lash.

“You _what_?”

Bucky couldn’t help it. He laughed. Steve looked affronted and made another effort to stand up, but Bucky retained his grasp on his hand and pulled him back down.

“It’s not funny Buck.” Steve looked like the personal embodiment of embarrassment and anger all rolled into one. “You don’t gotta tease me like that. I told you to forget about it.”

Bucky shook his head as he regained his composure. He lifted their connected hands and placed a gentle kiss on Steve’s knuckles.

“I’ve loved you since we were teenagers, punk.” Bucky reassured him. “Just forgive me that I never thought it would happen like this.”

“Like what?” Steve’s brows furrowed in the way Bucky loved, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to smooth it out with a kiss. But, first things first.

“That you would feel the same way.” Bucky admitted quietly. He worked so hard to project himself as a confident individual to all, even Steve, so it is hard now, to admit his vulnerability. He watched as Steve swallowed and processed the information. The furrow disappeared as hope ignited in his blue eyes.

“You have to know that I’ve loved you since we were kids Buck. I told my ma once that I was gonna marry you someday. She told me then that it wasn’t allowed, but if anyone would make it happen, it would be me. She told me “as long as you are happy, I’m happy.” Can you believe that?”

Bucky shook his head incredulously, remembering his promise to Sarah Rogers all those years ago. “I think she knew how I felt about you too.” Bucky confirmed.

They sat there for a moment just smiling at each other, taking the moment in.

Looking back, it isn’t clear who moved first, but what’s important is that they met somewhere in the middle, lips meeting lips in a sweet kiss. Bucky pulled Steve closer to him as Steve’s fingers found their way to thread through Bucky’s hair. Bucky broke the kiss with a small nibble on Steve’s bottom lip, grinning as he took in the slightly dazed look on his face.

“I love you, Steve Rogers.”

Steve grinned back and cupped Bucky’s face with both of his hands.

“I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

\---

The next party that Tony throws finds the two super soldiers cuddled up on a couch together, happy and content. When Thor breaks out the Asgardian Mead and offers a class to both Steve and Bucky, they exchange a look before Bucky winks and accepts for the both of them. After all, they have that dumb, blue, alien poison to thank for where they are today. Who knows what could happen this go around?


End file.
